The Garland United Methodist Church chose to close its doors after Pastor Floyd had served the church for 7-1/2 years. During that time a small service was started at a local senior apartment complex - that service, now named "Worship at the Gardens", continues.
Pastor Floyd, ordained in 2005 by the Wesleyan Church, recognizes that he is still a growing child of God in need of God's grace. The focus of his ministry is bringing God's love and forgiveness to a broken world.

Sunday, March 05, 2006

Jesus – The Word Of God

Intro.: There are a number of things that will impress
visitors to
our church.

One of those things
will be support that we have for each other – how we care for
one another

Others might find the
fact that we place a great importance on the word of God to be
significant

There may be others
that find our history to be signifant – with a church that is
approaching 200 years of ministry in

There are others, but I
would be amiss to not to mention that one of the most attractive parts
of our church are the stained glass windows that adorn the building.

There are seven windows
in the sanctuary proper – and five more in the northex area.

It is the seven windows
in this room that we will use as the outline for the sermons of Lent.

Trans: During the next seven weeks we will look at each of
these
windows.

Today we want to look
at Jesus who John calls the Word of God

Next week is Scout
Sunday – it seems like a good Sunday to discuss Jesus'
relationship to the children

Jesus was not only the
Word of God, he was also King of Kings and Lord of Lords

The last Sunday of
March we move to take a look at Jesus' relationship to the Old
Testament.

April will begin with a
look at the picture of Jesus as an infant

A week later, on Palm
Sunday, we will reflect about the darkest day in human history
– the day they put Jesus on the Cross

Finally, on Easter
Sunday, we will look at Jesus, the good shepherd.

Read:
John 1:1-5, 10-14; I John 1:1-4

Pray

Jesus
as the Word has roots that go back before creation.

Look again at the
passage we read this morning - In
the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was
God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were
made; without him nothing was made that has been made.i

He was there when
the world was spoken into existence.

He was there with
God when He created Adam and Eve

(Ill.)
My wife and I like to watch
the clouds. She is convinced that she can even tell the weather by
looking at the clouds. For example, she tells me that when the
clouds are pink, she can predict that it is going to snow. I don't
know if she is right or wrong – I do wonder if Jesus was as
excited
about the first clouds that appeared on the horizon after creation? Was
he as amazed at the shapes and colors? Did he stand back and see
elephants or dinosaurs or airplanes in the shapes formed by those
clouds?

Jesus Christ, the
word of God, was present at the beginning of creation. Was he as awe
struck with creation as we are today?

Jesus
is both the source of life and light.

John
1:4-5 says, “In
him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in
the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.”ii

(Ill.)
In June 1982 a massive
solar flare was emitted from the sun. The energy in this flare was
so high, that the scientific instruments designed to measure
such things went off the scale. In less than 20 minutes, that single
flare released more energy than all the natural and manufactured
energy the earth uses in a single year. Here was a tremendous source
of energy – but we had no way to capture it, no way to use
it. It
was lost to the vastness of space.

Jesus can be compared to
that solar flare – he as so much light and life to give to
us, that
we fail to use it all. He wants to touch our lives in so many ways,
but we miss it, we fail to see him at work, or we are so ingrained to
our lives, that we do not call on the life and light that Jesus wants
to provide.iii

You
will remember that Jesus said, “I
am the light of the world.”

But
someplace we missed it – though we are the greatest part of
God's creation, we would have been there at his crucifixion. Perhaps
you would want to scream, “Not me.” But remember,
Peter was there; Paul, if not there, was active in trying to destroy
the church just a few years later.

Yet,
Jesus did not reject Peter, Jesus still went after Paul. And he is
there ready for you.

He
offers us, as broken as we are, his light and life. Now we only need to
respond.

The
Word became flesh.

That is what John
1:14 says.

Christ gave up
his
crown, so we could gain ours.

Jesus
shed his royal robes, so that we could sit at the foot of the King of
Kings.

Today,
we begin the celebration of Lent – but without the birth of
Christ, there could be no celebration of his death.

(Ill.)
John
Stott, a superb preacher from the 60's and 70's, once wrote,
“It is
fitting that a supernatural person should enter and leave the earth
in a supernatural way. This is in fact what the New Testament teaches
and the Church believes. His birth was natural, but His conception
was supernatural. His death was natural, but His resurrection was
supernatural.”

And
it was so we could enjoy God's grace rather than His wrath.

The
Word is to be proclaimed.

Take
one more look at I John 1:1-4

When
we talk about proclaiming the word of God, it is not just the
scriptures that we are to proclaim, it is Jesus, the Word become flesh.

To
witness is not merely to invite someone to church, though this may be
part of it.

To
witness is not merely to tell someone to read their Bible, though that
may be part of it.

To
witness is to offer our world Jesus Christ – with the power
to hear, with the power to take our brokenness and remake it into
something that God can and will use.

I
hope that as we meet here week after week, that what is offered is a
person who loves you and cares for you more than any other.